The Daily NorthwesternNorthwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 18812015-03-03T17:06:20Zhttp://dailynorthwestern.com/feed/atom/WordPressBen Schaefer, Assistant City Editorhttp://dailynorthwestern.com/?p=1702642015-03-03T07:52:38Z2015-03-03T07:52:38Z

The five candidates in the upcoming election for District 202’s school board discussed Evanston Township High School and the problems facing the school in a forum Monday evening.

Mark Metz, Anne Sills, Jonathan Baum, Adrian Dortch and Monique Parsons gathered in the ETHS auditorium and answered questions from dozens of parents. Specific issues discussed included common core curriculum standards, the achievement gap in Evanston students and looming threats to education funding that could emerge from Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed changes to taxation and funding.

The candidates cited theirexperience in government and community organizing when they addressed solutions to possible funding issues. Sills spoke about her extensive knowledge of the state’s pension struggles, while Baum emphasized the need to audit the efficacy of various programs and cut expenditures when necessary. Parsonsexpressed concern for protecting funding for children’s centers, which are facing cuts under Rauner’s 2016 budget and an immediate deficit.

“We need board members who know the state budget, know its priorities and can stay on top of things in that area,” said Parsons, who is the chief operating officer of the McGaw YMCA. “We need to allow the administration to go through the budget line by line and see how priorities can be met, then meet with elected officials to give them the ammunition to fight for our schools.”

The Evanston/Skokie PTA Council, ETHS Parents Engaged and the League of Women Voters of Evanston sponsored the event. Valerie Krejcie of the latter group moderated the debate.

Each candidate commended the progress of collaborative efforts between Evanston/Skokie School District 65 and D202, and proposed plans to continue and expand on the relationship that emphasized parent involvement, college readiness and collaboration between educators in the two districts. Dortch, who is running for a seat in both the D202 and D65 race, spoke in favor of consolidating the two districts and instituting a K-12 district.

The election will take place April 7. Early voting will be available from March 23 to April 4 at several locations throughout Evanston, Skokie and Chicago.

Becky Zwolinski is a member of Parents Engaged and has two sons, one who attends ETHS and one who graduated from the school in 2012. She said she appreciated the format of the forum that allowed candidates to speak to the strengths of their platform with a well-balanced approach.

“I don’t feel like there’s any big, burning issues, but they all seem like aware and intelligent people,” Zwolinski said. “To me it’s about how they process and approach issues.”

Baum and Metz are both seeking reelection to the board.

Candidates for the D65 election will take part in a similar forum Thursday, March 5, at the Joseph E. Hill Education Center, 1500 McDaniel Ave. That event will begin at 7 p.m.

The candidates for D65 include Omar Brown, Jennifer Phillips, Richard Rykhus and Dortch.

A Rice University professor spoke Monday at the Evanston Public Library on sectarianism in the Middle East and how the region’s history of coexistence has slowly been forgotten.

Ussama Makdisi, a history professor and the first holder of the Arab-American Educational Foundation chair of Arab Studies at Rice University, spoke to an audience of about 50 people on the origins of sectarianism in the modern Middle East. The talk was the second event in a series of discussions and lectures organized by EPL, 1703 Orrington Ave., and Northwestern’s Program in Middle East and North African Studies.

Makdisi has written several award-winning books about Ottoman and Arab history, U.S.-Arab relations and U.S. missionary work in the Middle East.

He discussed how both Americans and people in the Middle East, when thinking only of the Islamic State group, are unfortunately forgetting the region’s “rich history of pluralism” during the Ottoman Empire.

“There is simply no such thing as Sectarianism with a capital ‘S’ that is the same in the region over time,” Makdisi said. “There was a part of Islam in every Arab Christian.”

Makdisi said the Ottoman Empire allowed, for a time, a society of diverse and unequal systems. However, Makdisi said the rise of nationalism, Western imperialism and reformation changed the empire. Coexistence and diversity gave way to equality and similarity.

“Many states, many great empires in the 19th century… including the United States, struggled with new notions of secular equality, new notions of citizenship and struggled to reconcile these notions with longstanding convictions of either racial or religious supremacy,” Makdisi said.

Makdisi said that as European powers and outside forces tried to install the new system of equality in the Middle East, violence and conflict started, and conflict is seen today.

“Sectarian violence between (Ottoman) Muslims and Ottoman Christians occurred primarily in the 19th century, and violence between Arabs and Jews occurred mainly in the 20th century,” Makdisi said. “Today, in the 21st century, we’re talking all about Sunni and Shiite conflict.”

Lorena Neal, a librarian at EPL, said the talk is part of an ongoing partnership between the library and NU that aims to provide an in-depth look at the Middle East.

“The Middle East is a constant source of news and controversy,” Neal said. “There is a lack of information often about what the basis is for all the issues that arise out of the Middle East.”

Gayle Anderson, an Evanston resident,attended the talk and said she thought it was interesting that Western intervention caused more conflict in the region, even though Western nations wanted to help the Ottoman Empire.

“I liked the new perspective,” Anderson said.

Makdisi closed with how the current conflicts in the Middle East did not start long ago.

“The Middle East, in other words, is not just inheriting age-old religious identities but has also inherited a process of unmaking that began in the 19th century,” Makdisi said.

Jill Soloway, a Golden Globe winner and creator of Amazon’s show “Transparent,”spoke Monday at Northwestern about her experience as a female filmmaker and the experience of filmmakers from historically underrepresented social groups.

About 60 people attended Soloway’s talk in Norris University Center as part of the Contemporary Thought Speaker Series.

“We try to bring speakers who have something to say about issues that affect students right now,” Joe Eichenbaum, a Weinberg senior and chairman of the series, told The Daily. “There has been a lot of interesting discussions about identity on campus, so Jill Soloway seemed like a great fit.”

As she began her speech, Soloway said she wanted to tell the audience about the truth about her experience as a producer, whose responsibility entails the search for directors for television shows. She said she is currently looking for writers and directors who identify themselves as female, queer or people of color.

“Diversity is something that I deal with as a producer because there are so many white cis males who are ready to take those jobs,” Soloway said.

Soloway said she thinks about how to bring to the industry people who are not white, male and cisgender, who she said dominate film.

“I realized recently that protagonism is privilege, and portrayals of male protagonism are perpetuators of privilege propaganda,” Soloway said. “All art is propaganda for the self.”

Soloway said those who identify as female, queer or people of color lack the opportunity to be protagonists in television shows, and the film industry should allow these groups the chance to write narratives representative of their lives.

She added that filmmakers whose influence has been marginalized should begin or continue producing their work and confronting challenges that lie ahead.

Despite the difficulties people in minority groups face in film industry, opportunities are increasing due to the expansion of distribution channels, Soloway said.

“Social media allows and encourages people to have a voice and share their voices,” Soloway said. “I hope that you will allow each other to be the subject, to be the protagonist and to have a privilege.”

The speech was followed by a Q&A session. Soloway answered questions from the audience and elaborated on her points mentioned in the speech.

“I thought Jill Soloway was a great speaker, and she made me think about the ‘otherness’ of people who aren’t white, cis male in Hollywood,” Communication sophomore Caroline Kelly said. “She gave me the message that I need to remember to make my own art to overcome challenges.”

Communication sophomore Samantha Rose, a member of CTSS and an organizer of the event, said Soloway’s unique vision and experience as a leader in the film industry motivated her and other members of the series to invite her to NU.

“I hope that people can see similarities and apply some of the ideas that she presents to their own experience at Northwestern,” Rose said.

Alpha Phi Alpha hosted a discussion Monday on the misappropriation of black culture, touching on topics from slang to hair to Iggy Azalea.

The discussion, which more than 30 people attended, focused on how other cultures, particularly mainstream white culture, appropriate black culture, and when the act is and isn’t acceptable. African American Studies Prof. Michelle Wright moderated the discussion, which was held in Lunt Hall.

Wright asked attendees for their “most egregious examples” of misappropriation. Responses included the appropriation of black slang, some of which, Wright noted, has moved into standard American English over the last 100 years.

“African Americans are relatively unique in the world in that so much of our language has fed into the mainstream, and has been doing so for over a century,” she said. “So there are now a lot of terms that are viewed as white.”

Wright cited slang terms “cool” and “hot” as examples.

Another response was the misappropriation of black music in mainstream white culture, specifically with Australian rapper Iggy Azalea’s recent success. Many attendees said Azalea, who is white, misappropriates black music, with some pointing to her refusal to acknowledge hip hop’s roots.

“There have been black women who do what Iggy Azalea is doing now and they’ve been doing it for 30 years,” Weinberg freshman Joy Holden said. “She knows nothing about this culture and the roots under it.”

Wright also discussed a series of hypothetical situations that focused on an element of black culture — such as a style of dance or music — and asked attendees who has the right to decide what should and shouldn’t be done with that aspect of culture.

Alpha Phi Alpha is a historically black fraternity. Weinberg sophomore Dami Arowolaju, an Alpha Phi Alpha member who helped organize the event, said there is a lack of understanding between different groups on campus, particularly between students of color and white students.

“One of the biggest things on this campus is students not understanding the deep-rooted issues that face other groups because they don’t experience it,” Arowolaju told The Daily. “They’re not immersed in the black community, so they don’t understand what black people feel and how they think.”

Weinberg senior and Alpha Phi Alpha president Cameron Dickerson told The Daily the goal of the discussion was to provide a space where attendees could discuss their views on misappropriation and come to some understanding by the end of the event.

Wright closed the meeting on a positive note, noting the global influence of black culture.

“Blackness is so freaking complex, and that’s what I love about it,” she said. “And that’s not a weakness, that’s an incredible strength, because I don’t know of any other identity that is so polyvalent … that has such an amazing impact on global culture when it comes to language, when it comes to music, when it comes to politics.”

In the wake of alleged sexual misconduct between a Northwestern professor and students, an opinion piece written by Communication Prof. Laura Kipnishas prompted strong student reactions, including a letter against the article’s sentiments penned and signed by student representatives from several groups on campus.

Kipnis’ piece, titled “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe” and published Friday in The Chronicle of Higher Education,criticized university policies that prohibit romantic and sexual relationships between professors and students, arguing the policies give students an inaccurate sense of vulnerability.

“It’s been barely a year since the Great Prohibition took effect in my own workplace,” Kipnis, a Radio, Television and Film professor, wrote. “Before that, students and professors could date whomever we wanted; the next day we were off-limits to one another — verboten, traife, dangerous (and perhaps, therefore, all the more alluring).”

In January 2014, NU rolled out a new policy that explicitly prohibits romantic relationships between faculty and undergraduate students, reasoning that students are inherently less powerful than faculty members and such relationships carry a “risk of coercion.”

In the article, Kipnis discussed the alleged 2012 sexual assault of a then-Medill freshman by philosophy Prof. Peter Ludlow, and referred to the student’s claims as “melodrama.”As of Monday evening, the article had received more than 480 comments.

In response to Kipnis’ remarks about the alleged assault, the public letter signed by more than 40 students saysshe “spits in the face of survivors of rape and sexual assault everywhere.”

“Kipnis’ full-throated support of sexual encounters between faculty and their students is anathema to the safe culture of healthy sexuality towards which the Northwestern community ought to aspire,” students wrote. “Professor Kipnis does not speak for us.”

Students from organizations including Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault,Rainbow Alliance,College Feministsand the Asian Pacific American Coalition signed the letter on Monday.

Communication junior Zoe Pressman, an RTVF major who signed the letter, said she found the article “absurd, offensive and all over the place.”

“Where she mocked students who came to her privately to express discomfort … she mocked them for coming forward and being too vulnerable,” she told The Daily. “Then she flipped it around and belittled some of her friends for not speaking up about their personal sexual harassment.”

In an email to The Daily on Monday, Kipnis said she hopes her article sparks discussion.

“I completely understand that not everyone’s going to agree with my point of view,” she wrote.

In the article, Kipnis mentions two separate instances in which two students — one male and one female — requested to not watch assigned films because they would be mentally or emotionally triggering. Kipnis wrote that many students are “cocooned from uncomfortable feelings.”

Communication senior Noa Wiener, who told The Daily she believes she was the female student mentioned in the story, said she had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder about a month prior to the incident and approached Kipnis with her concerns. Wiener took Kipnis’ class “RTVF 379: Secrets and Lies” in Spring Quarter 2014.

“At the time she seemed really understanding,” Wiener said, “but she apparently used it in an article a year later to mock me for it … It’s really hard to read about a private conversation you had with a professor in a mocking tone about something that’s hard to deal with anyway.”

Wiener said she was going to take another class with Kipnis, but plans to drop it. She said she also plans to talk to her adviser about the article and possibly file a formal complaint against Kipnis. Although there is a possibility the student mentioned wasn’t her, Wiener said, she believes the article is still unacceptable.

“Something should be done about it because I think this could be a thing other professors could point to and say, ‘Look what this professor said, it’s fine, it’s just a silly taboo,’” she said. “I would like to see some sort of repercussions just so she understands the effect something like this has on her students and her class.”

Other students voiced their individual opinions on social media, such as philosophy Ph.D. student Kathryn Pogin. In a public comment on the Title IX at Northwestern University Facebook page, Pogin addressed Kipnis’ comments regarding the alleged assault. Pogin said in the commentshe also sent her comments to Kipnis and editors at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“The sense of panic I feel comes from seeing professors in my own discipline shuffle from one institution to the next after being involved in harassment scandals that are covered up, swept under the rug, and quickly forgotten,” she wrote. “It comes from knowing victims who have been driven out of their departments and out of their chosen career paths because try as they might justice will not be served to them.”

This essay is part of The Spectrum, a weekly forum in our Opinion section for marginalized voices to share their perspectives. To submit a piece for The Spectrum or discuss story ideas, please email spectrum@dailynorthwestern.com.

It was Jan. 6, 2015, and I was fighting my jet lag as I sat crunching numbers for my painting class. The course materials added up to just over $100 and I currently had $71.82 in my bank account. While searching through the Blick website, adding prices together for the things I knew I absolutely needed, the cost of my other books weaved into my thoughts: “How would I pay for six books for my English class? Or four more books for my journalism class?”

I’ve been teetering on the line of being financially stable for the vast majority of my memory. It’s not uncommon at Northwestern to be financially insecure. However it is rarely talked about and, when it is, it’s often with hushed tones discussing the stresses of paying tuition and buying books.

Living paycheck to paycheck as a college student and balancing tuition payments and sorority dues is extremely stressful. I currently have two jobs here at NU, and still I’m stressed about all my expenses. I’ve had to borrow money from friends just to have materials I need for class. I am so grateful for them, but it is humiliating to walk up to someone and admit you need their help financially, especially at a university where everyone appears to be well off.

Shame is a big part of why it is a topic that is often swept under the rug. How does someone explain why they can’t go to your philanthropy event or buy the Derby Days shirt, not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t afford to spend that extra $5? I also don’t want to bring it up with friends who have the money. Making them feel guilt for something they have no control over — whether it’s guilt about their money or my lack of it — makes me feel as uncomfortable as I do when I have to call my mom and ask for money, and she tells me she doesn’t have any to lend me.

This is not a pity party. Living within my means has taught me a lot about myself and what it means to be mature. I’ve known how to do my taxes since the age of 16. I know how to get creative when it comes to means of earning money: I sign up for every psychology study, Kellogg study and Frances Searle study I come across, and even use online sites, like Amazon’s Mechanical Turkor Swagbucks, to make a few dollars here and there. I’ve learned to prioritize what is important in my life. I might not order food on GrubHub very often, or buy a Starbucks coffee every morning, but I’ve saved $10 per paycheck to plan a trip to another country.

The biggest thing I hope to get from the NU community is conscientiousness. Although I would love to attend every Dance Marathon event as a member of the public relations committee, and I’d love to support your Greek organization’s philanthropy, sometimes I have to say I can’t, and it’s not because I don’t want to.

Arvid Swan wears a gray and purple Northwestern hoodie and matching sweatpants almost every day.

It makes sense. Ever since the former Michigan standout took NU’s men’s tennis head-coaching job in 2007,he has been all about the Wildcats program.

The eighth-year coach currently has a 112-91 record, but has been 51-26 in the past two-and-a-half years. In 2014, Swan was named the ITA Midwest Region Coach of the Year after leading the team to its third consecutive NCAA tournament berth.

Even so, the coach says he doesn’t like things to be about him. He said he wants all the attention to focus on the team.

Swan seems to prefer to walk up to his players and provide them with nuggets of insight. Those who know Swan best say he has a “dry” sense of humor, the kind that takes some getting used to. Swan is rarely the center of attention because he likes to defer to others. But he has been the central figure in the resurgence of the NU program.

Elite program

A series of plaques listing the Cats’ Big Ten Championship seasons loom over the six courts of the Combe Tennis Center. Compared to the women’s tennis team’s 14 championships, the men’s nine look paltry.

It is also a reminder: It has been a long time since the glory years of NU men’s tennis. There are even three empty slots waiting to have championship glory etched onto their purple surfaces. The team hasn’t had a prolonged stretch of dominance since Harry Truman was president, and it last stood atop the conference in 1990, whenSwan was only 15 years old.

Before Swan’s tenure as coach,NU was a respected team but never really in the running for a championship berth. The year before Swan’s arrival, the Cats had just finished a 10-14 season and only made it to the quarterfinals of Big Tens.

In his first season, Swan pulled together the 12th-ranked recruiting class in the nation, igniting a new era for the team. The men’s squad was no pushover, but Swan had bigger aspirations.

“My goal is, we keep trying to work towards being a championship-level team,” Swan said. “And once you do that once, you want to be consistently there. (Women’s tennis coach) Claire Pollardhas been consistently there for 16 years, so that’s what we’re working towards as a team.”

This season, Swan finally has the squad in position to make the leap as an elite program. NU sits at No. 20 in the national rankings thanks to inspired play against one of the toughest schedules in the country.

“This is the best team we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Klingemann said. “Now we finally have the horses to go and do what we’re trying to do.”

But Swan always looks to improve. He has plans written up for each of his players about what they need to practice and is constantly pulling players aside during practices and games to give them a couple more pointers.

“That’s the focus, getting better and better each match,” Swan said. “Our schedule has never been harder, never been more challenging. I think the guys are up for it, just, ‘Hey, today I’ve got to get better.’ Then hopefully by the end we’re there.”

Swan said he rarely looks past the day-to-day grind of the team because all he can control is how much the squad improves that day. That kind of drive flies in the face of history saying NU’s years of dominance are long gone. Swan doesn’t have time to reflect on history. He’s too busy making it.

Elite players

Swan’s favorite on-court memories from his tenure are not the singular triumphs of his team, but rather the journeys of the players that caused them.

“We’re trying to win in the moment, but as you look back you kind of say, ‘Okay, this guy went from where he was as a freshman to where he was as a senior from a tennis, a maturity, an academic perspective,’” he said. “I’m not going to look back and say, ‘Hey, that match, we really did well in that match,’ but I remember who played that match or who went from a certain level of player to a completely different level.”

Coaches in all sports talk about their “process,” a set of guidelines that will lead a player to long-term success if adhered to through adversity. For Swan, that process centers on his players’ unmatched passion for practice.

“We expect everybody to work really hard on a daily basis,” he said. “Tennis is kind of a grind-it-out sport, you’ve got to be able to do it day-in and day-out. You can’t have bad practices.”

Swan makes sure that his team practices 20 hours a week, the maximum amount allowed by the NCAA, and ensures the time is used to the fullest.

That focus on hard work mirrors Swan’s personal approach to his game from his days as a player.

“I put in a lot of time on the court, I put a lot of time out in terms of conditioning,” he said. “I wasn’t the most physically-gifted as an athlete so it was important that I do all the little things to get better as a player, so the one thing I think I bring is that kind of approach to my program.”

On the player development front, Swan’s methods unquestionably get results. His mindset has pushed former athletes like Spencer Wolf and Raleigh Smith and current sophomore Sam Shropshire to grow into first-team All-Big Ten performers and maximized the potential of countless other charges.

“Compared to some of my peers in high school, I feel like I improved a lot more in college compared to a lot of people,” Smith said. “Obviously Arvid is a big part of that.”

Senior Alberto Zanotti, who is in his fourth year under Swan’s tutelage, agrees.

“He has a lot of knowledge in the tennis world,” Zanotti said. “The whole sphere of logistics, he knows how to take care of all of his guys.”

Being able to point to his developmental credentials has only helped Swan on the recruiting trail, where the Cats have posted top-25 recruiting classes in his tenure.But credibility with more talented high school athletes hasn’t changed his commitment to success through hard work.

“We recruit certain types of kids. We want kids that, No. 1, love the sport and want to get better,” he said. “For us it’s finding that right fit of somebody who wants to be pushed, who wants to have hard practices, wants to have coaches who are on them a lot.”

Elite people

Swan’s work on the sideline doesn’t stop when the lights drop in the Combe Tennis Center and his players set their rackets down for schoolbooks. In fact, that’s when the real work begins.

“These guys are here and their parents aren’t, so Chris and I have to be willing to help them in any way that they need,” Swan said. “Making sure that we’re taking care of academic requirements, that we’re helpful in ways outside of tennis and academics and that we’re available 24 hours a day and seven days a week.”

For every moment the players spend on the court, there are countless more where tennis takes a back seat. The team has only nine active members on its roster on any given year, so Swan is able to give each player a lot of individual attention and enter into a personal mentorship role. Swan calls himself a sounding board, an advice-giver and an accountability director.

His efforts to make himself available for his players outside of the sport doesn’t go unnoticed with his team. Zanotti calls Swan an expert who “wears a lot of masks.”

“Whenever I get injured or need help academically, he’s always there to help,” sophomore Strong Kirchheimer said.“With the upperclassmen he helps them get internships and look for jobs when they get out of here.”

The same commitment to hard work that maximizes the tennis talent of his charges is also a crucial tool for developing players outside the lines.

“In practice they’re always facing adversity and in the matches they’re facing adversity,” Klingemann said. “They learn how to deal with it so when they hit the real world, whether that’s professional tennis or a job, they’ve already gone through all the adversity.”

A lasting impact

Swan doesn’t stop teaching his players once they graduate.

Smith, who graduated last year, still speaks with Swan almost every day as he tries to break into the professional tennis scene.

“He was always good about making recommendations and making calls and helping people out,” Smith said.

Swan takes great joy in developing his players off the court, and said keeping connections with his former players is probably the most satisfying part of his job.

Klingemann says that Swan’s intense approach to preparation is a manifestation of the care he has for his players and program.

“He always wants what’s best for his players or even just what’s best for me and what’s best for other people around him,” Klingemann said. “That shows in helping the guys on the team with jobs and really any situation they’re in outside the tennis court.”

Swan knows there are two sides to his job, and he takes both parts seriously.

“I don’t just look at this as, you know, I’m the tennis coach really,” he said. “I’m in charge of nine guys’ lives for four years, so that’s a pretty significant responsibility.”

It’s not explicitly in his job description, but Swan seems to take as much pride from building great people as he does from anything tennis can provide. For him, coaching is about more than the match at hand.

Northwestern will bid farewell to three seniors Tuesday night in its final home game of the season against Michigan.

Guards Dave Sobolewski and JerShon Cobb and center Jeremiah Kreisberg will be suiting up for the last time on the purple Welsh-Ryan Arena court as the Wildcats (14-15, 5-11 Big Ten) seek to take revenge for an early season heartbreaker against the Wolverines (14-14, 7-9). As a campaign that has been dominated by freshmen, close defeats and losing streaks draws to an end, three upperclassmen will be ending chapters of three very different journeys.

Kreisberg, a graduate transfer from Yale, has played one season at NU but said he’ll still feel emotional being honored in front of fans as part of senior night. The big man didn’t get to play in his undergraduate sendoff because of injury, and was skeptical if he would ever play basketball again.

“To be able to play a full season at a place like this has been everything I could ever want,” Kreisberg said. “I’ve been able to improve, contribute and play at the highest level.”

Always slated as junior center Alex Olah’s backup, Kreisberg has appeared in 22 games this season and averaged 6.9 minutes per contest. His stats have been underwhelming, and he’s been overshadowed by freshman forward Gavin Skelly late in the season, but Kreisberg, a dual citizen of Israel, said he plans to pursue a professional career there after completing his graduate degree.

Cobb has been at NU five years – the longest of this season’s graduating class – and has had an incredibly polarized career over that time span. Ranked as the No. 90 recruit in his class by Rivals.com, Cobb started 25 contests as a true freshman, averaging 7.4 points and 3 rebounds in 24 minutes per game.

But then a promising 2011-12 campaign was hamstrung by injuries, and Cobb was suspended the following season for failing to meet academic standards. He returned in 2013 in an uncertain position thanks to the arrival of new head coach Chris Collins, but emerged as a key sidekick to forward Drew Crawford. Cobb has battled through a litany of ailments this season to continue to be a productive player and said he is determined to be on the court Tuesday night.

“These fans have been through a lot with me,” Cobb said. “I want to show my appreciation.”

Sobolewski followed a career arc similar to Cobb’s. A darling of the Bill Carmody era, Sobolewski started 65 games his freshman and sophomore years under the former coach and averaged 35 minutes per contest. His shooting percentage and playing time declined precipitously his junior year under Collins, but Sobolewski has recovered some of his form this year to be a valuable, if unspectacular, contributor off the bench.

It comes as no surprise his favorite memory as a Cat is from his freshman season.

“Beating (then-No. 6) Michigan State my first year was a lot of fun when they stormed the court,” Sobolewski said.

Collins said he expects Cobb and Sobolewski to be in the starting lineup Tuesday, and all three seniors will be necessary for beating a Michigan squad that narrowly defeated NU, 56-54, in the teams’ last meeting on Jan. 17.

But the key to success, as it has been all season for a young Cats team, will be less experienced players making an outsized impact.

“It’s really important for the non-seniors to get you off to a good start,” Collins said. “The first couple minutes is going to be emotional.”

Northwestern had an exciting end to the Big Ten Championships on Saturday when junior Jordan Wilimovsky won a Big Ten title and shattered a school record in the process.

Wilimovsky won the 1,650 freestyle on the final day of competition with a time of 14:33.50, which broke the NU school record and the pool record at Iowa’s Campus Recreation and Wellness Center. The Saturday win is Wilimovsky’s first career Big Ten championship title and guarantees him a spot at the NCAA Championships later this month where, as of now, he will enter competition as No. 1 in the nation for the 1,650 freestyle event.

That win was not the only record Wilimovsky broke during the week. The junior surpassed the 500 freestyle school record on Thursday and placed third overall in the event. Wilimovsky received All-Big Ten first-team selection honors for his performances.

“Jordan was on all weekend,” coach Jarod Schroeder said. “He really took a step forward because typically he goes to a meet like that and focuses on the mile and has a decent 500, but this week he took a big step forward in the 500, too. During the mile I knew it would be good based on the 500, but I didn’t know it would be that good.”

NU as a team finished in ninth place out of 10 schools after four days of competition at the Big Ten Championships. NU’s Big Ten Sportsmanship Award went to senior Andrew Seitz after the closure of the meet.

NU was down a top diver, sophomore Andrew Cramer, due to a concussion, Schroeder said. The team therefore could not rely on the cushion of points that usually comes from the diving events.

Despite the ninth place finish, the team was happy with the performance it put forth at Big Tens and was up cumulatively more than 30 points from during last year’s competition, Schroeder said. The coach added he was “happy the entire weekend” with the way the team performed.

“We were missing one of our best divers so lost some points there,” senior captain Will Rosler said. “But overall we actually had a pretty big jump in points from last year to this year, so we put ourselves on a pretty good upward trajectory.”

Rosler had personal bests in the 50 and 100 breaststroke events, with times of 21:06 and 57:16 respectively.

The championship also saw multiple successful performances in the relay competitions, many of which almost beat school best times and successfully surpassed personal bests.

During the first day of competition, in the 200 medley, the team of sophomore Andy Jovanovic, seniors Uula Auren and Mark Ferguson and freshman Almog Olshtein swam the third-best performance in NU history and placed fifth overall with a NCAA “B” cut time of 1:25.93. This relay team along with two additional swimmers, freshman Nick Petersen and sophomore Jack Morris, will continue to practice and head to a “last chance” competition next Saturday at Georgia Tech to see if they can shave off some time to qualify for NCAAs.

“We missed the NCAA cut by three tenths of a second,” Schroeder said. “We had some slow exchanges, so if we can clean-up those exchanges we’ll do it. A lot of times you don’t know what you’re going to get a week after a conference meet so we’re going to bring six guys down there. If someone’s feeling off, we might slide someone else in there.”

Later that day, the 800 free relay team of sophomores Charlie Cole and Jonathan Lieberman and freshmen Alex Snarski and Gage Kohner swam the second-fastest time in school history during the brief program and placed sixth overall in the event. The team’s time of 6:26.76 was shy of the school record by 0.59 of a second.

Overall, the Cats were excited about their performance and felt the team displayed great effort and times during competition, showcasing a positive trend over the years for NU.

“In my four years here it was the best overall in terms of each individual going best times and performing out of their comfort zones or what they expected,” Rosler said. “From top to bottom we carried the energy pretty well.”

NU’s effort was evident this weekend as the team kept a positive attitude throughout the meet. Ultimately, NU is excited about the future of the program and that promise is being recognized by other teams in the competition.

“Obviously ninth place isn’t where we wanted to finish, but our guys are swimming well and taking steps forward,” Schroeder said. “I got a lot of compliments from other coaches that really loved the way our guys competed this weekend. They felt like every session our guys were doing things special and not every team can say that.”

A rough season got worse for Northwestern this weekend, as the Wildcats dropped three straight games to Southeastern Louisiana (8-4) in Hammond, Louisiana, this weekend.

The three losses — two of them on late-inning rallies — dropped NU’s record to 1-9 on the season.

On Friday, the Cats never had much of a chance. NU trailed 9-0 after four innings, as starting pitcher senior Brandon Magallones and reliever freshman Justin Yoss failed to contain Southeastern Louisiana’s offense. The Cats chipped away enough for a respectable 10-5 final.

Saturday’s double-header brought different paths to the same result for NU.

In the first game, the Cats were tied going into the bottom of the eighth inning before allowing a pair of runs that doomed them to a 6-4 loss. NU racked up 11 hits but left 10 runners on base and committed four errors in the field.

Game two unfolded similarly. The Cats scored three runs in the first inning and, after a strong performance from junior starter pitcher Matt Portland, led 3-2 entering the ninth inning. Junior reliever Jake Stolley, who had already thrown two scoreless frames, retired the first two batters before the inning unraveled. Stolley hit a batter, then allowed a double and a walk-off two-run single.

Though the Cats’ offense continued to under-perform, they did score more runs per game than they had in either of their first two weekends. NU has suffered from uncharacteristically poor performance from several key regulars and the health-related absences of outfielders junior Jack Mitchell and sophomore Matt Hopfner.

At 1-9, NU has the second-worst record in the Big Ten, ahead of only 0-6 Penn State.